HOW COME?
WHAT IS BEING DONE TO ELIMINATE CHILD LABOUR?
ARE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ACTIONS HAVING ANY POSITIVE RESULT?
Child labour in cotton is characterized by long working hours of hard, monotonous, physical labour (10 to 12 hours a day) with wages well below adult and local wages. Most of the children working are migrant children from the neighbouring districts. The majority of the child workers are girls, who are sought for their fast hands, endurance and obedience. This is what an Indian farmer said: ‘Cotton seed work is very labor intensive and a large number of laborers is required to do this work. It is also delicate work and needs to be handled carefully. We prefer young girl children for this task because with their delicate fingers they can handle this work better than adults. They also work more intensively than adults. We can control them easily. They listen to us and do what ever we ask them to do. The most important thing is labor costs. Nearly half of our investment goes towards payment of labor charges. The wage rates for children are far lower than adult wages. We can reduce our labor costs considerably if we hire girl children. If we want to hire adult labour we have to pay higher wages. With the current procurement price we get from the seed companies we can not afford to pay higher wages to the labourers.‘ There is no doubt that this would be the viewpoint of most of the cottonseed farmers in India.
The employment of children in cottonseed work has a negative impact on literacy and health of children. The nature of work in cottonseed does not allow children to go to school and the majority of children working in cottonseed has either dropped out of school or has never been in school. Cottonseed production has a tremendous toll on children’s health. Pesticides used in cotton and cottonseed production in India include highly toxic chemicals and children are directly exposed to high quantities of pesticides. General health problems include severe headaches, weakness, convulsions and respiratory depression.
The existing employment practices in cottonseed farms result in the denial of rights of children and violate many national laws and international conventions.Children’s right to education, health and safe living are denied by employing them on the farms on a long term contract. Securing the children’s labour through giving loans/advances to their parents and compelling them to work until the loan is repaid, long hours of work and paying less than minimum wage violates many Indian laws.
The exploitation of child labour on cottonseed farms is linked to large market forces. Several large-scale national and multinational seed companies, which produce and market the seeds, are involved in perpetuating the problem of child labour. The economic relationship behind this abuse is multi-tiered and complex. Cottonseed production is carried out through contract farming. Companies depend upon local farmers for seed production. They arrange seed buy arrangements with local farmers through middlemen called ‘seed organizers’. Seed organizers mediate between companies and farmers. Although seed companies are not directly involved in the production process, they exert control over farmers and the production process by supplying foundation seed, advancing production capital, fixing procurement prices and through stipulating quality controls.
Several Indian companies and multinationals make use of around 200.000 children who are employed by the farmers to which they have subcontracted the cultivation of cotton seeds. The response of state and central governments and the seed industry to address the problem of child labour in this sector has not been very encouraging. In the early 2000s, the government made some efforts to address the problem of child labour in general and child labour in cottonseed farms in particular by initiating measures like awareness campaigns, new policy documents on child labour, booking cases against seed farmers found using child labour. However the change of the government in the state in 2004 had some negative impact and has slowed down the ongoing efforts of the government to eliminate the child labour.
The campaign initiated by local and international NGOs, has put seed companies, especially multinationals, under severe pressure to pay serious attention to the problem. Multinationals who claim they are committed to the highest standards of socially responsible business practices had to face criticism from national and international media and NGOs. As a result, several national and multinational companies acknowledged the problem of child labour in the seed industry and have recently come forward to initiate steps to address the problem. Two major seed assocations in India, the Association of Seed Industry (ASI) and the Seedsmen Association of Andhra Pradesh, have passed resolutions. In 2003, the ASI members initiated a dialogu with NGO MV Foundation for a collaborative effort to address the child labour problem. A joint action plan was prepared, but when in came to implementation of the joint action plan, many of the ASI companies, mainly Indian companies, did not show any interest. Finally, only two international companies have come forward to implement the action plan. Both companies have been implementing an action plan which includes motivation campaigns, price incentives to the growers for not employing children, disincentives like black listing of farmers who are found using child labour for future production. This initiative had some positive impact in reducing the numbers of working children but due to their limited coverage these efforts have had a very minimal impact on the overall magnitude of child labour in the cottonseed industry.
Unless the major seed companies which control nearly 75% of cottonseed business in the country come forward, it is difficult to address the problem at an industry level. Despite knowing the problem very well, these companies are not paying any serious attention to the issue. The four major companies, together account for nearly 200,000 (48% of total child labour) children employed in cottonseed production in 2006-07, out of which 110,000 are below 14 years and 90,000 are in the 15-18 year age group.
All for Children is a new five-year initiative supported by a 4.5 million USD donation from H&M and run by UNICEF. The project focuses on protecting the rights of 1.2 million children up to 14 years of age, in cotton producing areas in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. The goal is to get children out of work and into school and improve access to health and nutrition care.
H&M AND UNICEF HAVE A HAND IN REDUCING CHILD LABOUR THROUGH THEIR 'ALL FOR CHILDREN' INITIATIVE
H&M does not buy cotton and can therefore not impose any demands upon cotton and cotton seed producers. However, by cooperating with UNICEF, H&M can help address the causes of child labour through five focus areas: child protection policy and structures, education, behavioural change communication, social protection and health and nutrition services.
As part of this project Alber Elbaz of Lanvin has customized unique haute couture looks from the Lanvin for H&M collection. The looks were revealed at a fashion show in New York and were auctioned for an amount of 29 063 USD, this bid has been pledged to UNICEF.
Swedish illustrator Lovisa Burfitt designed an organic cotton bag and Sonia Rykiel designed another bag together with her collection for H&M to help raise funds for H&M and UNICEF’s All for Children initiative.
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| Lovisa Burfitt's Bag |
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| Sonia Rykiel's Bag |
Sources: Child bondage continues in Indian Cotton Supply Chain, Davuluri Venkateswarlu, September 2007, Laborrights.org. H&M Unicef , ALL FOR CHILDREN. De Morgen. LanvinforH&M.com.
